I emptied the avalanche of thirteen balls on the table and said: "Take a ball and begin, Mr.Dalton.How many can you run with an outlay like that ?" He said, with the half-affronted air of a mathematician who has been asked how much of the multiplication table he can recite without a break: "I suppose a million--eight hundred thousand, anyway." I said "You shall hove the privilege of placing the balls to suit yourself, and I want to bet you a dollar that you can't run fifteen." I will not dwell upon the sequel.

At the end of an hour his face was red, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here and there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and there wasn't a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him anywhere--and I had all his small change.
When the summer was over, we went home to Hartford, and one day Mr.
George Robertson arrived from Boston with two or three hours to spare between then and the return train, and as he was a young gentleman to whom we were in debt for much social pleasure, it was my duty, and a welcome duty, to make his two or three hours interesting for him.

So I took him up-stairs and set up my billiard scheme for his comfort.

Mine was a good table, in perfect repair; the cues were in perfect condition; the balls were ivory, and flawless--but I knew that Mr.Robertson was my prey, just the same, for by exhaustive tests with this outfit I had found that my limit was thirty-one.

I had proved to my satisfaction that whereas I could not fairly expect to get more than six or eight or a dozen caroms out of a run, I could now and then reach twenty and twenty-five, and after a long procession of failures finally achieve a run of thirty-one; but in no case had I ever got beyond thirty-one.
Robertson's game, as I knew, was a little better than mine, so I resolved to require him to make thirty-two.